The invention relates to the production of transgenic plants involving plant cells or tissue being transformed with a gene of interest and then regenerated into whole plants. Representative current methods for transforming plants by introducing a gene of interest can require that the cells or tissue be maintained in plant culture media for several weeks to effect selection or to support sufficient tissue growth. Many commercially important plants, plant cells, or plant tissues are difficult to maintain in tissue culture, and this poses a limitation on the number of transgenic plants that can successfully be regenerated from tissue culture. One reason posed to explain the difficulty of culturing plant tissue in vitro is that the plant tissue/cells are stressed when forced to grow in tissue culture media. Potential reasons for this could include production of free radicals or reactive oxygen species during an oxidative burst, which damages cells, or activation or alteration of metabolic pathways.
Thus, there is a continuing need to provide plant transformation media that enhance effective selection and growth of transformed tissue/cells to survive in the media during the transformation/regeneration process. The present invention includes a media and method that increases the overall efficiency of the transformation process.